The case concerned a Syrian applicant who applied for asylum in the Netherlands. On 1 June 2023, the State Secretary for Justice and Security decided that the application was inadmissible and ordered the deportation to Denmark under the Dublin III Regulation where the applicant had applied for asylum on 29 January 2023. The applicant appealed against the decision and lodged an interim measure before the District Court of The Hague.

The applicant stated that he was subjected to indirect refoulment upon return to Denmark as the Netherlands and Denmark had different protection policies for applicants from Syria. The applicant claimed that due to this, the principle of mutual trust of Member States could not apply in the case of Denmark.

The District Court of The Hague referred to the case law of the Council of State, Applicants v State Secretary for Justice and Security (Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid), 202105784/1/V3, ECLI:NL:RVS:2022:1864, 6 July 2022 where the Council of State decided that there was a real risk of indirect refoulement, in violation of Article 3 of the ECHR and Article 4 of the EU Charter upon transfer to Denmark because of the protection policy for Syrian applicants there and Applicant v State Secretary for Justice and Security (Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid), 202206466/1/V3, ECLI:NL:RVS:2023:3286, 6 September 2023 where the above mentioned judgement was overruled and decided, that there was no longer an obvious and fundamental difference between the Danish and Dutch protection policies for Syrians.

The District Court of The Hague seated in Roermond considered that Denmark had a substantially different protection policy than the Netherlands with regard to Syrians because in Denmark applicants had to demonstrate the need of protection whereas in the Netherlands applicants had to make it plausible that they did not need protection. The District Court of The Hague also considered that this difference was not a circumstance to prohibit the transfer to Denmark, as the applicant had the opportunity to express his reasons for asylum in Denmark.

The court also considered that the applicant had the possibility to lodge a complaint to the ECtHR due to a violation of Article 3 ECHR in the case of a deportation or a violation of the human dignity and private life, if the applicant was not deported but only received a degree of tolerance. The District Court of The Hague stated that it was not the task of the Dutch courts to assess judgments delivered by courts of other Member States and to take the outcome of that procedure into account in the assessment of the legality of the Dublin transfer decision. Based on the above, the court decided that the appeal was unfounded.